7 Tips To Learn To Trust Yourself to Make Good Decisions

Trusting Yourself Is Crucial to Make Good Decisions

There are different reasons why people doubt themselves to make good decisions. One of the most important ones is lacking trust in their own judgment.

Many people struggle with this. Sometimes it is a temporary symptom, but often times it is a lifelong symptom. They second guess and question every big (and sometimes little) decision they have to make. They feel the frustration of stalling, procrastinating, and simply not moving forward in their lives because of lacking the trust in their own ability to make a good decision.

Most of the time our decisions are “good ones” because they are simply based on a set of preconceived mental believes that makes us think and react in a certain way to organize our lives as we feel or think it should be. We use these mental conditionings to judge what is “right” or what is “wrong,” and based on that assumption take our decisions, and organize our lives.

Obviously, there are likely a few that we are not particularly proud of, but they are part of our process of personal growth, experience and evolution.

Even if the majority of us are raised with good morals and values — we are taught wrong from right — we still make bad choices. Often times these bad choices are blamed upon others. However, if others can influence our thinking, it is only we who take the final decision to do something, or not…

So how do we learn to trust ourselves to make good decisions?

Well, first of all it’s good to know that we don’t know of anyone that makes good decisions all the time, so making a “mistake” is just a normal process of learning more about “life”… But, that’s not why you are reading this, so here are the steps we recommend to put in place:

Learn to connect with your inner voice

We all have an inner voice that is wise beyond our imagination. However to learn to communicate with this “inner voice” we need to learn to quiet our mind and listen… To do this you have to turn off all the mental chatter that causes doubt and confusion in your head.

Sit quietly, and focus on quietening your mind. It can take a long time and many practices to finally find that voice inside you that is filled with compassion and respect. However learn to listen to it, and start practicing it today, because ones you can connect to your Inner Wisdom, you’ll be amazed and wondering why we haven’t learned about it from our youngest age. (And if you wonder about this, know that there is a good reason for this… It’s called the power struggle! Nobody could dominate or control you any longer, so that’s not in the best interest of politics, religion, institutions, etc. But let’s not digress…)

Avoid connecting with people who destroy your dreams and weaken your self-trust

This is probably something you’ll have to learn too. But, it’s actually relatively easy to recognize them. These are the ones who use you, or are the naysayers to your dreams. You know the ones you always have to be the one who does something for them, but they never return in any way or form something to you… The ones that, every time you feel enthusiastic about a new idea for something you want to do or try, shoot your idea to a million pieces with negative arguments, and planting so much doubt, fear and worry in your mind that you feel stupid of even thinking about it…

Whenever you feel bad, sad or your energy drained when you’re with someone, and this is a recurring theme whenever you are with them, around them, talk to them, or even think about them, you’ve just spotted one…

We all have friends, family members, or other relatives that fit the previous description. And it doesn’t mean we need to drop them, as they are the ones that “need us” more than we need them. But step in your own power! Learn to recognize them, and control how much of your time and energy you want to spend with them. And if you can avoid them altogether, you’ll soon find out that you feel “lighter,” more positive and more energetic.

However, consider this, don’t just give up on someone because the situation’s not ideal. Great relationships aren’t great because they have no problems. They’re great because both people care enough about the other person to find a way to make it work. But the difference is in the words “both…” If only one is trying, there’s no way both can find satisfaction. And if you are trying very hard to hold on to a relationship to make the relationship work, just know that at your absolute best, you still won’t be good enough for the wrong person…

Keep the promises you make to yourself

If you are someone who want to do many things, but then never follow through on them, for instance, you might want to get more fit, and the way you think about achieving that goal is by starting to make a commitment to walk every day, limit the daily deserts and sweets to once a week, change your diet, eat less meat, stop the sugar, and skip your favored beverages and replace them with plain and simple water… you’re probably setting yourself up for failure from the start. And the problem is that if you break any of those commitments to yourself, you’re destroying your self-trust. And every time you do this it is like you are carving in a scar… So, let me ask you this question: if you don’t trust someone, will you follow his advice?

I hope you answered NO! If not, you might need to seek professional help.

But here is the thing, every time we set out to do something and we brake that commitment to ourselves, we are creating a scar on our self-trust. So, if you know you do this often to yourself (and we all do this in one way or another) let me then ask you: How can you trust yourself to make good decisions, if you can’t trust yourself?

This is more serious and important than it might appear by just reading the words. Therefore let it sink in a little. Read it again. Give it some more thought.

The reason for this is that it is a subconscious process as well as a conscious process. If you can stop feeling guilty about all the commitments you didn’t keep for yourself, and start all over again, you will feel relief. As you can not change what you did in the past, don’t worry about that anymore. Let it go.

However, you can change how you will feel now and in the future. So, let’s do this by starting now!

Start with a fresh and firm commitment to one simple goal. One that feels good to you, one that feels like you can integrate in your schedule, and one you feel you can find the discipline to really commit to.

Choose something simple, and something you can do quickly too. The reason for this is that it’s a system. A system to increase your level of trust in yourself, which will also affect your feeling of self-respect, self-love, and become more proud of yourself. Once you have achieved the first one, create another one, and soon you’ll find this to become a very productive and satisfying habit to have.

Talk to yourself

Okay, I agree, this one might seem a little bit awkward… but we do it all the time. Some consciously, but everyone unconsciously. Now, if you can bring that self-talk to a conscious level, to a level where you start monitoring your self-talk, you’ll learn to hear what thoughts you are feeding your brain with.

If you are constantly saying to yourself I’m clumsy, I can not do anything right, etc. What do you think your outcome will be?

So learn to catch this negative self-talk, and destroy it. Words are images in your brain, so destroy these images by imagining they are a mirror or a sculpture from glass and smash it with a huge hammer to a million peaces. Or if you find that to aggressive; imagine you have just typed or written these words, and erase what you have written with the delete button or an erase…

Now, start to talk to yourself like you would be talking to your best friend or someone you love unconditionally, talk with kindness and compassion. Don’t bash yourself. Forgive yourself when you make a mistake or make a wrong choice and trust yourself enough to make a better choice next time.

Consider changing your mindset about mistakes. Consider erasing that word out of your vocabulary, and replace it with “experience.” Now, and from this day on you live to experience life. In order to do that you will be presented by many choices to make decisions. Some will turn out giving you a positive experience and some will turn out to have a negative experience. However, they are only that; “experiences.” Impressions that are passing by in time. Therefore they don’t stay in time, unless we keep them in our mind.

Consider this: The past is not your future, unless you live there… It’s okay to ponder for a while on this one, and how it relates to your current state of life and your thinking patterns.

Every time you have experienced something you didn’t like so much, you have now learned something that will help you make better decisions the next time they come around…

Follow your gut-instinct

There are probably many moments in your past, when you followed your gut-instinct, and have neglected to listen or follow what others had to say. I wonder how many times that was wrong? Probably NEVER, or I’m pretty sure, not many!

Think back for a little, and list the times you followed your instincts when everyone told you to do something different and the outcome was favorable. List the times you followed the opinions of others against your instincts and the results weren’t favorable.

Normally your list of positive outcomes should be extremely high, compared to the few exceptions when it didn’t turn out right. If it is, think back to those times you trusted yourself whenever you are now faced with a big decision.

Surround yourself with people who support you

Opposite to the people that use you, make you feel sad, and drain your energy, you have people that uplift you, make you laugh, and feel good about yourself. And then, one level deeper, you have the people that take an effort to listen to you and learn to understand you, the ones that love and support you in every decision you make. They don’t tell you what to do, as they understand that you are an individual, with personal preferences and desires, and that these might not be the same as theirs. But they are okay with that. They respect you as an individual, therefore they know that the only person who knows what is best for you, is YOU! These are the people that will encourage you to listen to your inner voice and will help you learn to trust yourself.

Learn to find and recognize these people, and try to stay more close or in regular contact with them. Sometimes it is enough to follow them on their social pages, as often they will post positive thoughts and inspirations. But if you can try to have real life social contact with them, or at least surround you with more positive people that uplift you, you will soon experience that life becomes more interesting and enjoyable, and making good decisions comes more easy too because all this feeds more positive energy in and around you.

Be more decisive

In the end, just make the decision. You have to let go all the insecurities that are keeping you from taking action. Decisions are made every minute of every day. If you continue to second guess yourself and worry that you are going to make the wrong decision, you’ll end up stuck and never get where you want to be. Trusting yourself enough to know you are making good decisions is how you can move on.

Fear will immobilize your efforts — it is a false energy. In other words, it is something you pay close attention to but which does not act in your best interest — UNLESS there is a grizzly bear staring you in the face! Let go of your ‘security’ and move forward!

Consider these positive quotes:

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything.” — Vincent Van Gogh

“The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.” — Thucydides

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.” — Steve Jobs

“If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it reality.” — Dr Roopleen

“Today and onwards, I stand proud, for the bridges I’ve climbed, for the battles I’ve won, and for the examples I’ve set, but most importantly, for the person I have become. I like who I am now, finally, at peace with me…” — Heather James

Here is a short video of Antony Robbins on how simple decisions each day can shape the way your life unfolds.

Here is an interesting article by Esther Bautista on Tiny Buddha, where she write about growing up as a co-dependent people pleaser with a lot of self-doubt.

P.S.: If you like these kind of short and easy self-improvement tips, visit the FREEBIES Tab on the top of the navigation bar, or click the image on the left for your FREE download of 33 Tips For Self-Improvement You Can Start Today!